


Christmas Experience

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad Puns, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fun, Holidays, Humorous Ending, Inspired by Real Events, Multi, Not Beta Read, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:51:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You guys promised we would get up early and decorate and stuff and its five, that’s early so get up,” Tony insists, tugging at Steve’s arm. He’d already gotten the heads up from Nat and Clint that Tony was on his way to irritate him and Bucky. Bucky makes a loud groaning noise and flips over, falling back asleep near instantly, not even having to fake it for the sake of their plan. </p>
<p>“Go back to bed Tony, we said early, not the crack of dawn,” Steve says, pretending to be irritated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> I felt like writing Christmas fluff and my mom was whining and crying at my dad and I to get up this morning so that is what inspired this fic. Also it's up just barely on Christmas! Lol

“You guys _promised_ we would get up early and decorate and stuff and its five, that’s early so get up,” Tony insists, tugging at Steve’s arm. He’d already gotten the heads up from Nat and Clint that Tony was on his way to irritate him and Bucky. Bucky makes a loud groaning noise and flips over, falling back asleep near instantly, not even having to fake it for the sake of their plan.

“Go back to bed Tony, we said early, not the crack of dawn,” Steve says, pretending to be irritated.

Tony doesn’t get the memo anyways and spends a solid ten minutes trying to get them out of bed until Bucky finally knocks him off the bed. Instead of tucking tail and licking his wounds though, Tony decides to go harass Bruce to see if maybe _he_ would wake up and go decorate. Steve had no idea why Tony was so invested in the season to begin with, Christmas in the Stark household, from what I understand, was not that great. Granted any time in the Stark house hold according to Tony was not that great but Christmas in particular.

But then the whole Avenger thing started and after spending so much time together they sort of learned to love each other in what some would consider some pretty unconventional ways and suddenly Tony was actually invested in Christmas. They were busy though and Steve swore if there was one more fucking alien invasion in New York, honestly why did the aliens always go to America, he was going to scream. So they hadn’t had the time to decorate the inside of the Tower, the rest was left to professionals that everyone felt bad for because Tony was considerably particular this year. Then Sam had that mission, which required him to leave the country and Rhodey went along as back up and Tony’s plans for family decorating was ruined. He had gotten pouty about it but it was all part of the plan.

Natasha had come up with it, naturally, and Tony, as per usual, was oblivious. That wasn’t to say Tony didn’t pay attention, but he was watching all the wrong things thanks to Natasha with a dash of Clint. While Tony had been pouting about Sam and Rhodey leaving the country the rest of them had smuggled in the decorations and Tony’s presents. When Tony was done whining and crying about that Bucky and Nat did… something impressive to Bucky’s arm because it took hours for Tony to figure it out so Nat took the time to properly hide everything and explain what they were all supposed to do.

Thankfully exactly zero of them found it difficult to be annoyed with one grown man acting like an excited child on Christmas morning (literally) and none of them had a problem telling him to go back to bed either. Bruce had actually threatened to hulk out only to have Tony tell him that he’d take his chances and at least he would be up, which would force everyone else to be up. Steve wasn’t sure how Bruce got rid of Tony but he did so Tony decided to start at the beginning and go back to harassing Clint and Nat.

He does this for a solid two hours before Pepper finally _mercifully_ puts them out of their misery and calls Tony, feigning a work emergency. They figured Tony would slink off out of the large space he somehow managed to fit them all in comfortably but no, instead Tony loudly announces that he’s leaving over the speaker system JARVIS used. He then decided to inform them all that when he came back they were all going to get up and help him decorate because it was _seven_ now and that was late to him. Ten minutes before that it had been early, which Clint points out when Pepper lets them know that Tony was with her and they were free to follow through on their plan.

“I know he’s annoying on the best of days but sometimes I forget how annoying,” Bruce says, rubbing his eyes and looking much like the harassed scientist that he was. At least he was awake though, both Clint and Bucky were falling asleep leaning on one another, one of the many things they bonded over upon Bucky’s return. That, and they all seemed to have a thing for Natasha, who was generally picky about who survived the trip between her thighs but seemed to be happy with her current situation. To be fair Bruce was pretty much indestructible, Steve managed to survive being frozen for seventy years, Sam and Rhodey were scrappy, Bucky survived Nat while training, and death didn’t seem to agree with Tony. Clint, well, Clint was Clint. He did Clint things and no one knew how he was so successful, including himself but they all loved him anyways.

Sometimes everyone thought Tony was the heart of the team because he was so passionate, or Steve because he was such a natural leader, but Natasha was the true heart. Despite her cool exterior and the media constantly labeling her as ‘frigid’ and calling her an ice queen she was the one who always knew how to mesh all of their very different personalities together. It helped that she knew how to blend in anywhere, how to figure people out in under ten seconds and determine their motivations. It made communication a lot easier when Natasha gave them little choice to be open about it because she knew what was on their minds anyways. Not to mention you started to grow rather fond of the people you almost died fighting with on a weekly basis. It was hard to stay angry at the people you knew were probably going to be your last hope in the field, they saved each other from certain death far too often for petty arguments to ruin their collective relationship.

Also Natasha hated when people fought instead of communicating like ‘normal humans’ and no one was stupid enough to piss Nat off. There have been several occasions where they have all woken up in museum exhibits all over the country, and occasionally the world, in place of their wax figure with no knowledge of how she had even managed. Like that time Tony woke up in the suit in Egypt because he refused to talk about the Bucky thing.

Eventually Tony got over himself and now Bucky was his favorite so he probably should have given up the jealousy thing to start with though none of them blamed him. He had a past with emotional manipulation and unlike Bucky and Nat or hell, even Clint, Tony’s response was to internalize it all and never speak to anyone about it ever. Or complain about the lack of a dog because ‘every family needs a dog. Or twelve cats’. Natasha had told him that they were absolutely _not_ getting twelve cats and he and Bucky and sulked for a week. Clint had ended up bringing home a golden lab with one eye he named Lucky because he was lucky to be alive and they sulked less while Sam took like seven hundred pictures to put on Instagram.

“How long do you think Pepper can distract Tony for?” Steve asks Natasha because she would know best.

“Years,” Rhodey says, interrupting anything Natasha might have said, “and I would greatly appreciate _not_ being stuffed into a closet again, I have spent enough time in the military closet thank you very much,” he says and Sam snorts.

“Well he was going to see you and you had to go _somewhere_ ,” Clint says, yawning wide, “so in the closet you went. You should be happy I got out of bed for this; I was planning on sleeping all day until Natasha had to go ruin it with decorating. We get food, right? Like pizza?” he asks.

“Oh my god Clint no, we are not eating pizza on Christmas,” Sam says, “I’m cooking and Natasha stay the hell away from the kitchen, you can’t cook and we both know that I love you, but you need to stop trying. The food didn’t ask to suffer like that,” he says meaningfully.

“I burnt one entire turkey all the way through, Sam, it wasn’t that bad and I think you’re being melodramatic,” she says.

“How the hell?” Rhodey asks, “even Tony isn’t that bad and he blew up a house trying to cook once but the food was okay.”

Bruce shakes his head, “oh my god, that poor turkey, wasn’t killing it enough? Don’t disrespect the dead, Nat,” he jokes and Natasha glares at him.

“First of all Tony is absolutely a worse cook than me, we almost died when he made appetizers that one time and they were store bought. We can survive alien attacks no problem, hell, even a couple murder bots curtesy of Doom, Loki escaping _again_ , that asshole who keeps trying to eat the earth, and Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Tony’s appetizers though, that’s what was our almost demise. Now that we’ve established that I am a master chef go do what do your jobs,” she instructs, shooing them all away.

Clint dresses up Lucky because Clint and decorating, historically, has gone very, very wrong and somehow aliens ended up happening. Again. Bruce was in charge of fluffing the bows Natasha was sticking around everywhere, Sam and Rhodey were de-tangling the beads for the tree, and Steve and Bucky were in charge of getting the tree from its hiding spot.

They manage to drag it out just in time to see Sam laughing at Rhodey, who had somehow become tangled _in_ the beads. When they see him they frown, “didn’t Nat say she hid the tree in Tony’s lab?” Sam asks, both he and Rhodey tilting their head in confusion.

Bucky and Steve manage to get the tree properly situated with minimal pokes to the eye from the needles and sighs, “yes, the tree was in the lab,” he says.

“Uhh,” Rhodey says, “that thing is at least twelve feet tall, even Tony would have noticed that. I know that he’s unobservant enough most days to mistake me for a potted plant but that’s not a potted plant.”

“I wish he would have mistaken us all for potted plants earlier instead of having to listen to Tony whine and cry at us for two hours to decorate,” Clint mumbles, returning with Lucky, who was sporting a Christmas hat and a cape.

Bucky sighs and steps back, “it was where the Avenjet is supposed to be,” he says, “does that look okay? It better, the tree nearly took my eye out like six times.”

“The tree looks fine,” Sam assures him, “and if it was in place of the jet where’s the jet?” Steve and Bucky shrug, probably the roof or something. Who knows, it’s Nat, she managed to smuggle Steve into a museum exhibit to make him part of it without even waking him up and that in itself was a task. He was a light sleeper and he wasn’t impressed to be part of the damn ice age scene around him with Nat giggling in the far corner.

Bruce, as it turned out, was very good with bows and they looked great, Natasha was a master with lights, Rhodey managed to detangle himself from the beads, and Bucky only got poked in the eye twice more by the tree. The presents were hidden in the strangest of places, like the bunch that Natasha had hidden in food boxes that she felt certain no one would go near, not to mention several she pulled out of Lucky’s kennel. Steve had no idea where they were in there because Lucky had been sleeping in it previously and according to Clint nothing but the dog was in there. Sam pulls presents from equally strange and convoluted places, including out of a few house plants that were by no means large enough to hide the presents Sam pulled out.

Bucky and Steve were less confusing and hid everything under the bed and had made sure to keep Tony out of their bedroom by entertaining Tony in his. Everyone else seemed to prefer Tony’s room too but that was probably because it was the biggest if for no other reason than Tony claiming master bathroom space. Nat had tried to fight him for it and surprisingly came up short, not that she didn’t use it all the time. Most of the time she was kicking Tony out of it, which Clint theorized was why she had ‘lost’ the battle for it. They must have agreed that she could use it whenever she wanted and Natasha, being almost more stubborn than Tony, made sure everything she did in there conflicted with whatever Tony did. That didn’t stop him from trying to kick her out to use his own bathroom, not that he ever really succeeded.

“Am I the only one who didn’t bother to hide anything?” Bruce asks, looking confused. “It’s so much easier to claim you bought yourself stuff though I have no idea why all of you were ready to believe that I bought myself red silk pajamas. First off you all know I sleep naked, and second, I don’t like red, obviously they were for Tony.”

Bucky leans over, “does that mean those really sexy jeans he bought are actually for you because they would look way better on you,” he says, grinning.

“No Bucky, those were actually for me but thanks for telling everyone that Steve would look better in them,” he says, giving Bucky a look.

He shrugs, “it isn’t my fault Steve has the better ass. You have better hair though, it’s thick and fun to pet, like Tony’s, Steve’s is a little thin,” he says.

“Probably old age,” Sam says and they all start laughing.

Steve sighs, “for all intents and purposes I’m actually like thirty four, which is younger than everyone but Sam and Nat so enough with the old man jokes. You’re the ones with popping knees, mine are just fine,” he says, grinning.

“Only because you’re all on them so much,” Bruce quips, “honestly, use a bed, or like a pillow or something. Cement floors are not good for knees,” he says.

“Oh don’t give them tips, they never listen,” Natasha says, “alright so bows and lights are done, Bruce managed to wrangle some garland together with the bows and lights. You guys have put beads on the tree, thankfully sans Rhodey, and oh there are lights in there too, who did that?” she asks.

“I did and the tree kept trying to poke my eye out,” Bucky says, rubbing his left eye sadly.

Natasha snorts and then tries to cover it up and then snorts again, “sorry Bucky but that’s hilarious. Okay, okay, now that we’re done with Bucky’s eye drama and blow job tips where are the tree decorations? Rhodes?” she asks, looking to Rhodey.

“I don’t know, I’ve been pretending to be out of the country for a week,” he says.

Sam rolls his eyes fondly, “I’ll get them,” he says. They all help with the tree, poor Bucky managing to get the wrong parts of the tree in his eye at least twice more when Clint tries to use him as a step stool. Steve and Sam manage to climb the thing without either knocking it over or ruining anyone’s efforts to decorate the top half and they both only knock a few balls to the ground on their way down. Rhodey was generally upset because they messed up the beads he had strategically placed around the bottom half of the monstrosity of a tree Natasha picked out.

They were trying to figure out how the hell to get a star on the top when Pepper texts to inform them that Tony got bored with the pretend emergency and he was on his way back up. This resulted in them running all over the place trying to perfect the decorations and place the presents, including Sam and Rhodey, who ended up being shoved back into a closet with a, “come on, man.” Clint panics and decides to arrow the star onto the tree, which was far more successful than anticipated even if the star was crooked and had an arrow in it.

By the time Tony gets back upstairs they are all perched in the living room smiling, “oh come on guys, I whined and cried at you for two hours and you guys for two hours and you guys did it all without me?” he says, pouting at them.

“We wanted you to enjoy the experience without having to do the work,” Natasha says, “seems how you’re Christmas holidays sucked with Howard. We figured we could do the work and you could experience the happiness. Now let’s open presents!” Tony stops pouting then and grins, jumping onto everyone sitting on the overstuffed couch because god forbid he find his own seat.

*

“Oh come on,” Steve says, “who got me a Captain America doll wrapped in Frozen paper? _Tony_?” he asks and everyone starts laughing and Natasha grins. Steve pretends to be unimpressed but that was too well-thought out not to laugh at and Bucky was wheezing beside him.

“I wish that was me, that’s hilarious,” Tony says, high fiving Nat.               

“Can we get _out_ of the closet now?” Rhodey yells from the other room. Tony’s eyes widen as Natasha sighs and goes to get them, Clint trailing behind her.

They all return, Rhodey and Sam looking unimpressed with giant red bows on their heads with Nat and Clint grinning behind them. “Neat, I hope it’s a cat,” Tony says, hopping up and walking over to greet them.

“We are _not_ a cat but I was real tempted to pee on Nat’s pillow. I wanna live though,” Rhodey says.

“Probably best that you use the litter box,” Tony says and Sam snorts at the bad joke but Rhodey lets out a long but fond sigh.

“You are not as funny as you think you- oww!” he yelps, jumping in the air and swatting in Nat’s general direction but plenty far from her.

“I worked hard, don’t you ruin it,” she warns.

“Tony’s bad cat joke ruined Christmas, not my pointing he’s not funny. Besides, guy’s got an ego, he thinks he’s hilarious,” Rhodey says.

“That’s because I _am_ hilarious and it’s hardly my fault you don’t understand my comedic genius,” Tony says and Rhodey gives Nat an ‘I told you so’ look.

Natasha decides that her gift was absolutely necessary to open next because Sam and Rhodey didn’t count. She also notes that they needed a larger seating area because Bruce was being eaten by everyone else’s butts and he also had a great gift from her to open. Tony, though, was to go first because she thought her shitty puns made great gifts. Clint, if the look on his face had anything to say about it, was also involved in this pun-filled Christmas endeavor. Tony opens the present and frowns, “umm, a metal dude with a small dick?” he asks, not understanding.

Natasha smiles wide, “iron man,” she whispers and Tony looks at it for a second and starts laughing.

“Oh my god. This is not anatomically correct, though,” he says.

Rhodey looks up at it from his spot at Tony’s feet, “it is if you’re cold,” he says and Tony swats him gently.

“Sam next!” Natasha yells and sticks a baseball hat on his head, “a falcon with a cap on its head!” she says gleefully, and to make the reference worse it was a Captain America hat. They go through the presents, everyone generally excited about their presents, particularly Steve when he opens a heated sweater that Tony made rather than another ice pun gift.

Sam decides to go make food and Rhodey peels Bruce off the couch, “damn, you got squished pretty good,” he says and Bruce brushes himself off.

“So where’s you’re shitty pun gift?” Tony asks Clint, who clearly decides it was his time to shine because he whips out the most hideous glasses Steve had ever seen and puts them on.

“Are those… is that…?” Bruce asks, squinting at Clint’s hideous glasses with horribly printed hawks on them.

“Hawkeye!” he yells and Steve sighs, deciding that he was going to help Sam in the kitchen because this was too much.

“We don’t need these people, Bruce,” Rhodey says, “we can run away from all of these shitty puns,” he says.

“But Sam’s making food,” Bruce reasons.

“After we eat,” Rhodey decides.               


End file.
